Olympian Max Litchfield visits Armthorpe

posted 8 Oct 2016, 02:55 by Clive Greenhalgh

1 Oct 2016: Since his return from the Rio Olympic Games,
former Dartes star Max Litchfield (Spa) has
been busy giving talks here there and everywhere. From his old school, to being
featured at the BSCA Conference by Coach Russ Barber (his current coach as
a senior international in Sheffield). But this weekend's talk took him right
back to his roots. Not at the Doncaster club where he first appeared in
competitive swimming (Spa Askern), but at a club he swam against many times in
the Pocklington Times League for nearly a decade.

All credit to Armthorpe Chairman Pete Hardy and his team of volunteers for
making this event happen.

We're sure Max relished the opportunity to return to
a pool where he raced (and often beat) many Armthorpe stars over the years in
local league galas. For extra spice, many of those tussels involved him racing
the coach Pete arranged for this event, British Masters record holder and
former Armthorpe Head Coach Dave Holmes. Some may still remember the electric
head-to-head league races the two enjoyed. Honours probably finished just about
even between them!

The talk focussed on Max's journey from learn to swim at the old Minsthorpe
pool just to the North of Doncaster. Then on to his days with Askern Spa and
Dartes. The talk finished up with the final leg of his journey, down the M18 to
join one of the country's top senior programmes under the guidance of Coach
Russ Barber at City of Sheffield. And of course, his recent success at the Rio
Olympic Games.

Then it was question time and challenging queries from the kids about how he
deals with nerves before a race. Not surprisingly, considering the number of
hours involved with making it to the pinnacle of the sport, parents wanted to
know how he managed to balance his school work with swimming.

Before the pool session, the young swimmers (and parents too) had the
opportunity for photographs and autographs with Doncaster's inspirational
athlete. Among them was Nicholas Honeybone (Arm)

or Cyril to his friends, before following Max's lead by competing at Winter
Yorkshires all weekend - the autographed kickboard also finding its way to the
swim down pool!

Next, attention turned to the pool. Coach Dave Holmes led the session,
running through a number of drills for the different strokes. Max provided a
demonstration of 200m IM, followed by a super-fast sub 1 min (from a push) 100m
variant to show everyone an Olympian in full flow.

As you can imagine, the session was very well attended by Armthorpe
as well as Rossington swimmers, parents, and coaches. Hopefully the event was successful in showing
everyone that although Max is now an Olympian (having achieved great success so
far in the early stages of his senior swimming career) he is just an ordinary
lad, who started out the same as all those children attending the talk. Through
commitment, determination and hard work he has been able to do extraordinary
things.

Maybe there was a future Olympian sitting and
listening to what he had to say!